Enhancement as a hybrid playstyle.

This week while fighting IJ normal 10man, we lost a healer early to a dc. Instead of wiping i quickly put chain heal on my bar and started spamming chain heal with five stack mw. Now the Hpally obv did most of the healing, 171k. But it was a well timed AG/Asc/stormlash totem combo that sealed it late for the kill. I finished 230k dps, 52k hps. This made me start to wonder how effective, if set up to max healing power, enhancement could be as a potentially 2nd healer (for normals) and/or a 3rd heals for those fights were 2 just isn't enough. So i hopped on my other enhance shaman, ran an lfr and (with much less gear) did 100k dps, 46k hps for IJugg as well.

So my talent choices for this kind of build are EoE (to get max CH bounces and AG dmg/heal procs), AG, and PE (EB would be better imo if this was an 'all in' spec, but i'd still like to have solid burst). Glyphs: Healing storm (required), Chaining/Flame Shock/HST/and FE(if you choose the PE build) based on the boss. Stat priority would shift back to agility gemming (for more sp) and enchants with haste>mastery>crit to follow for the PE build. The playstyle change would replace LB/CL with mw5 to CH, unless raid is topped.

Has anyone else experimented with this type of build? I was suprised that i didn't lose much dps to gain 40k hps without changing anything. In the game of "I must max my dps", does a solid hybrid build have a place in a 10man raid (obv not likely in a 25man) instead of having an OS healer or an extra person on the roster?

Yes I've been using Glyph of Chaining/HealingStorm with AG and HTT since the begining of the patch in heroic 10m progression and it has very much got my raid off trouble in siegecrafter, malkorok, juggernaut and even thok heroic as its extremely effective to bring everyone to top hp. Not really necessary to bring one less healer or w/e though, but helps a ton in clutch moments.

Yes I've been using Glyph of Chaining/HealingStorm with AG and HTT since the begining of the patch in heroic 10m progression and it has very much got my raid off trouble in siegecrafter, malkorok, juggernaut and even thok heroic as its extremely effective to bring everyone to top hp. Not really necessary to bring one less healer or w/e though, but helps a ton in clutch moments.

Are you setting yourself up for a hybrid role? Or are you just doing that as needed within your full dps spec?

Say a mob is doing a mass aoe ability that affects everyone every 10s and a healer is having trouble so he calls for AG. If I continue single target w/o dps CDs I probably won't help him as much as he needs so I throw a pair of Chain Heals.

I always select my talents depending on the fight and in the case of Thok I do use Primal Elementalist especially the ability "Reinforce" and do a few chain heals even if noone asks for them if I see the raid 2 low.

when its neded its normal that we use our abilities to help the raid altrought with good healers you should help with ch on crucial moments only shorter fight = less praboblity that something go wrong for instance your healers can fall asleep from boredom if you will do their job :P

Maybe I should restate myself. You're all responding like i would expect as part of a maxdps, toss some heals out as needed and use your healing cd's at healer request (which i already do as well). That's all fine. But that's not where im going with this. I'm proposing subbing out the 3rd healer (where 3 are needed) or even a 2nd healer for some 2 heal fights. So it's a healing spec but with the dps built in, like every mw5 is a chain heal unless raid is basically topped and the tank doesn't need any attention. Think of it similar to tanks that spec/build into a dps component instead of meat shield, except this is healing with the dps component.

So here's one example of something valuable to the idea, our T15 2pc gives 2 stacks of mw. Get the heroic versions of t15 2pc, upgrade them and you'll have mw procs galore = more chain heal/healing surge chances.

Maybe that helps clarify what im thinking and how viable can it be made.

To be fair, there really isn't a reason for the type of gameplay you speak of to exist in the first place because if a Enhancement Shaman or any other Hybrid with decent off-healing ever did such a thing the raid in question would certainly NOT be raiding normal modes and even if you were then you would still struggle on some bosses.

Your better off with a Disc Priest spaming Smite and doing 70-90k DPS.

To be fair, there really isn't a reason for the type of gameplay you speak of to exist in the first place because if a Enhancement Shaman or any other Hybrid with decent off-healing ever did such a thing the raid in question would certainly NOT be raiding normal modes and even if you were then you would still struggle on some bosses.

Not to mention Blizz would just nerf us into the ground like they did with HR.

It's possible, not practical. I put out 50k hps typically and I'm a heroic 10m raider with a lot of gear, I could put out more if i LB'ed less.

On certain fights, where the tank is getting TRUCKED, Or really any fight that's solo tanked where the tank damage is spiky, it's beneficial to set up a focus macro for your HS and set a tank to focus. My healing surges hit for anywhere from 90-140k, and with about 40 percent crit 180-280k, this can make a big difference 10-30% of your tank's health.

FYI and this is important, during AG a Chain Heal MWx5 is so much better than a LB or an EB. EotE+MWx5+Chain Heal is crazy, one triple proc during AG can top your raid off. IMO doing anything other than dropping the occasional Healing Rain for 25m. I could be wrong, but it'd probably be better to just put out that LB dps.

On ANOTHER side note, if you're not in a stable guild, where your GM is gonna look at logs and say things like, oh, let's see. "Our Enhancement shaman did 20 mil more on single target than the hunter who cleaved adds pew-pew GG." Or "Our Enhancement Shaman put out 70k hps throughout the fight and 200k hps bursts during heavy damage phases." If you're competing for your spot in any real way, make sure that your efforts arent going unnoticed. On Heroic Spoils of Pandaria my presence is crucial to our kill, both in terms of focused DPS and well-timed healing. Enhance is in a great spot, let people know why

To be fair, there really isn't a reason for the type of gameplay you speak of to exist in the first place because if a Enhancement Shaman or any other Hybrid with decent off-healing ever did such a thing the raid in question would certainly NOT be raiding normal modes and even if you were then you would still struggle on some bosses.

Your better off with a Disc Priest spaming Smite and doing 70-90k DPS.

This is more of what i was looking for as feedback type. Thank you for the perspective.

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Originally Posted by jayinjersey

Yea my GM figured this out a bit ago...I'm now the main burst dps and tank healer for the tower teams on galak...its ever so fun and stress full

But I like yelling at the tank to blow a CD till I get more MW procs (was easier before I got T16 actually...I miss the extra procs of the 2pT15)

I kept my 2pc from T15 for the faster mw procs and use it on my Galakras build. And that's how i accidentally fell into this happening on IJ as i had not switched my gear over and i was able to use CH to help us get thru IJ. And yes our Pally went into godmode for it, no doubt. Thanks for the comment.

Update: I'm doing Heroic Thok Progression as enhance. I took the chaining glyph. Not dropping Healing Rain, and here's why. By timing Chain Heals for after roars, and if your raid is positioned correctly you get huge heals. I'm pulling 90k-115k HPS during that phase. This is of course with HTT and ascendance as well, but CH is doing as much if not more than my first AG. Cheers and happy healing!

Update: I'm doing Heroic Thok Progression as enhance. I took the chaining glyph. Not dropping Healing Rain, and here's why. By timing Chain Heals for after roars, and if your raid is positioned correctly you get huge heals. I'm pulling 90k-115k HPS during that phase. This is of course with HTT and ascendance as well, but CH is doing as much if not more than my first AG. Cheers and happy healing!

Cheers for the tip, i'll test that on Normal this week. Idiot me was dropping Healing Rains with Healing Storm glyph, not properly reading the tooltip.